USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 7
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There were four originally who signed the Grand Deed of the Plymouth Colony and acquired the territory . . . John Walley, Stephen Burton, Nathaniel Oliver, and Nathaniel Byfield. Nathaniel Oliver almost
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immediately transferred his share of the purchase to Nathan Hayman, and the latter is also listed in the records of the first town meeting as an original proprietor. All of these men had been residents of Boston and had acquired large fortunes as merchants.
John Walley had come to this country in 1660 at the age of sixteen and had pro- ceeded to establish himself solidly as a re- spected citizen of Boston, a man of an un- usually frank personality yet with no per- sonal enemies. After his part in the plan- ning out of the town he was repeatedly a holder of town offices yet he was never a candidate for office. He had a reputation for performing all his duties faithfully, and even his political opponents frequently called upon his opinions in matters per- taining to the good of the state. In 1690, he commanded the land forces of Sir William Phipp's unsuccessful Canadian expedition, discharging his command with generalship and heroism. With the rapid rise of Bristol he increased his personal fortune, but was an ardent philanthropist and supporter of religion. However, in later life he returned to Boston, dying there in 1712.
Little is known about Stephen Burton, probably the best educated of the four and the holder of an Oxford degree. Though he played but a small part in the founding of the town, due to a temporary mental ill- ness, he afterwards was very active in the political life of the town and colony. Be- cause of his beautiful handwriting he was chosen the first recording officer of the town and was later the Register of the Probate Court, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, and Register of Deeds. In addition he was five times sent to the General Court at Plymouth as a deputy from Bristol, an evi- dence of the esteem he enjoyed among his fellow citizens. He died in Bristol in 1693.
Nathaniel Oliver was one of the richest of the four, but never settled in Bristol. He did, however, maintain a strong and tan- gible interest in the town, even after he had sold his share as proprietor to Nathan Hayman. This latter individual was both a mariner and merchant, noted for his shrewdness. He did a lot to start the mari- time career of the town but died in 1689, long before his period of usefulness was completed.
By far the most influential and important of the proprietors of Bristol was Nathaniel Byfield. He came from a prominent Eng- lish family in ecclesiastical circles, his father being one of the Westminster Assem- bly of Divines and his mother a sister of Juxon, a former Bishop of London and High Treasurer. Born in 1653, the young- est of twenty-one children, he came to Bos- ton at the age of twenty-one and decided to stay. In 1675, he married one Deborah Clarke and began his very successful busi- ness career. So prosperous had he become by the end of King Philip's War that he was able to invest his surplus fortune in the joint purchase of the Mount Hope territory. His first house on Byfield Street was the finest of all Bristol residences, and, like the Bosworth House, was used for early public and religious meetings. It was two stories high with a barn roof and a stout frame of blue oak. Nearly square itself, it had a great central chimney fourteen feet square and huge fireplaces in every room. Two hundred years later, when carpenters were demolishing the structure, they found the great beams still so hard that only the sharpest tools could make an impression upon them and when the chimney was over- thrown it fell like a single tree trunk with hardly a break.
Byfield had intended to live in this house at first, but when he found that he could acquire almost the complete ownership of Poppasquash, he decided to build his actual homestead there. The site of the new home- stead was the finest on the peninsula but the house itself, though built as sturdily, was in no way the equal of its predecessor. It was of the "camelopard" type, with great front rooms, sixteen feet square, and blinds, a rare luxury. Immense oak beams four feet through capped each fireplace, and did not show signs of decay even after 150 years of exposure to fire and smoke. It was in one of these fireplaces, one in the rear of the house, that an ox from the Byfield barns was found during a heavy snowstorm calmly lying on the warm ashes.
Byfield was a figure of great prominence in Bristol during his forty-four years as its citizen. He was chief judge of the new Bris- tol County and five times a delegate to the General Court at Plymouth. In addition he
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was for thirty-eight years the Chief Justice of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace and Common Pleas of Bristol.
This was no light weight of a man. Of im- posing appearance, tall in stature, talented as a public speaker, he was a power in the political controversies of both the Massa- chusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies, and made many enemies as well as close friends. It was true that he was a man of ambition and desired greatly to become a governor of Massachusetts, but his beliefs and motives in public life have been often misrepre- sented. He was a strong opponent of those who condoned the barbarous practice of burning supposed witches, and was disliked by both William Phipps and Increase Mather.
The record of his life in Bristol shows the man to have been generous to the town, straightforward in all his personal dealings, and very friendly in supporting religion and education. Of course he probably was overbearing, anxious to gain his own way,
and of a violent temper when crossed. Yet the records show a life that was strongly devoted to right and justice. His enemies had to admit his paramount integrity. The plan of Bristol was nearly all due to him. Shortly before the death of his second wife, in 1730, he returned to Boston to finish out his old age, dying there himself in 1732. His will mentioned some of his vast posses- sions, naming such things as a mansion house, rope-walk, warehouse, wharf and flats, tenements, and stores in Boston beside his Bristol lands and property.
These, then, were the men who planned the present town of Bristol. Their names are perpetuated in this day in the names of Bristol streets and schools. Some of them were able to see the abundant fruits of their efforts maturing richly. The silver spoon which they supplied at Bristol's founding was well-deserved, for upon the foundations they laid was built one of the greatest colon- ial towns and seaports, destined to be known throughout the world.
HISTORY OF LIGHTING IN PROVIDENCE
THE story of light, together with that of heat and shelter, is perhaps the key- story of civilization and progress. There was a time in the history of man when light was only the by-product of heat, but the days of the cave man have been buried under strata upon strata of later history and era after era of progress. And we, who are now living on the top strata, the very latest of eras, scarcely think of the past, so completely has the present enveloped us.
International tribute has been paid to the man who alone has perhaps done more to stimulate progress throughout the past fifty years than any other. Because Thom- as Edison invented the incandescent electric light in the year 1879 and because world- wide recognition of his genius has been given, it seems fitting, in order that we may more fully appreciate his gifts to us and to all people, that we should compare the present with the past and learn how the homes and streets of our Providence fore- fathers were lighted during the last two hundred years.
Street lights would have been laughed at by our early colonial ancestors. For more than a hundred years they depended upon hand-lanterns and flares when business or romance called them from their evening firesides to venture out upon the darkened streets and lanes. Even then it was more often a bright moon or a clear starlit night which determined the extent of their night- ly pilgrimages, for at best, lanterns were only a dim light and, during high winds, were wholly ineffectual.
Up through 1681 the interiors of houses were lighted by pitch-pine knots made into crude candle-like shapes; and a contem- plated destruction of the pine tree for its tar and pitch products wrought the inhab- itants up to a high fever of excitement, for they imagined that they would lose their only source of lighting. There were a few families, however, who were not using these smoky pitch lights, but had brass and iron candlesticks instead in which they burned hand-dipped tallow candles.
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Both tallow candles and those made from the sweet-smelling bayberries, which grew in great abundance, rapidly took the place of the pitch-pine knots, but not before 1820 did the inhabitants of Providence have a street lamp. This lamp consisted of a large glass box-shaped top, set on a ten-foot wooden pole, and had three wicks and a small receptacle for whale oil. While many of these lamps were set up, they were near- ly as unsatisfactory as hand lanterns and were used only up to 1847, kerosene and gasoline later replacing the whale oil as fuel.
In 1848, forty poles were erected about the old Cove, and gas lamps were installed by the Providence Gas Company, replacing the former naptha lamps which in turn were used to replace whale oil lamps in other sections of the city. Later, during Charles M. Smith's term of office as Light Superintendent, in 1867, 100 pot lights were set up, each of them having a pot- shaped container for gasoline. At this time the crew of city lamp-lighters had over 500 gas and gasoline lights to tend and could be seen nightly making their rounds in small wagons with their ladders and cans of fresh fuel.
When, in 1874, Edwin E. Bean of Boston invented a system whereby gas could be lighted by electricity and atmospheric pres- sure, Providence was quick to use the new idea, and connected up the forty lights around the Cove to try the new method. The first lighting of this sort was made in the form of an exhibition in which the mayor lighted the lamps in the circuit be- fore an audience of notables, but so novel was the procedure that for months it held the curiosity of crowds who went each night to the Cove to witness the strange perform- ance.
Among the seventy-five lamp-lighters who made their rounds in 1874 were two of unusual interest-the Rev. Norman Bul- lock, a minister of the gospel whose church was located at Manton and Chalkstone Avenues, and John C. Quinn, a cripple who
later became a lawyer. From the latter picturesque character, who by lighting lamps earned his way through Brown Uni- versity, we learn much in a direct way of the situation. He says, "We used to carry a ladder, weighing 21 pounds, and a con- tainer holding sufficient fluid to light our respective districts .... We were paid .... 31/2 cents for lighting oil lamps and 11/2 cents for gas .... and had eighty minutes to light the lamps in our section, the time depending on the season of year and the hour the moon came up. ... Winter or no winter; blizzard or no blizzard, you had to get the lights lit. ... There were no streets cut in many places, and it was hard to find your way in the dark.
If the moon was unusually bright, we would have late lighting. The signal would be a flag flying from Prospect Terrace. Later we had to get up and extinguish the lights in the morning and have them all out by four A. M. Policemen previously had done this but the number of burglaries increased."
This account was indeed typical of the times. Lamps were at best very ineffectual as a whole, and it must have been with a sense of great relief that the inhabitants saw the establishment of the first electric carbon lamps in 1882. Installed by the Rhode Island, later the Narragansett Light- ing Company, both single and double car- bon lamps gradually replaced gas, al- though the latter was in general use until 1912.
The era of the incandescent lamp has been quite short in Providence, dating only from 1901. Yet what wonders of illumina- tion it has caused! Cities have become creatures of night as well as day. The dazzling downtown districts, the brilliance of beacons and signs, and the ease with which we all turn on the lights in our homes are apt to make us forget the past. Yet there was a past in lighting as in every- thing else, a past which though certainly picturesque can only make us more appre- ciative of the present.
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HUGUENOTS IN RHODE ISLAND
THIS story has its beginning in the mar- I riage of Gabriel Bernon and Esther LeRoy at the little town of La Rochelle, France, in 1673. It was a beautiful wed- ding, one which united two of the most influential of the town's families and yet was a true love match. And it is the subse- quent career of this young husband and wife that we shall attempt to follow.
The first few years were passed joyfully enough. Gabriel was frequently gone for months on long sea voyages, but each absence only made his return a happier reunion. After the three children little Gabriel, Marie, and Esther . . . were born there was more to bring the fiery-eyed and fiery haired young father back in eagerness to La Rochelle. Unfortunately the years of happiness came first. The se- quel of later years were made more bitter because of it.
La Rochelle had long been an oasis, safe from the persecution of the Roman Catholics, but the town could not hold out forever against the oppression which threatened its Huguenot inhabitants. Thus it was that both Francois LeRoy and Andre Bernon, the fathers of the young couple, spoke to Gabriel of the bitter persecution and exile they believed would soon come and advised him to transfer his young family to the New World, there to make a fresh start and carry on the Huguenot faith.
It was a sad yet brave parting when Gabriel Bernon set out for Quebec with the hope of founding a new home for his loved ones. Tales of great danger and suf- fering at Quebec had come to La Rochelle, and the little family feared that it might never be re-united. But it was not danger from the Indians or suffering from any privation which Gabriel had to face. Que- bec, in 1685, was a Jesuit stronghold, and these fanatical priests and missionaries were only too anxious to pounce upon any Protestant invaders of their territory, sub- jecting them to immediate persecution and exile. Gabriel Bernon was a man of keen
vision and a hard worker, a man needed by the settlement in its development, yet his allegiance to his faith sealed his fate and he was shipped back from Quebec to La Ro- chelle. Here he was confined at once in the Lantern Tower of the town, scarcely having time to bribe a cabin boy to take a message to his wife before his jailers took him from the ship.
The news of the imprisonment came as a bombshell into the quiet family Bernon had left behind. At once Esther set out for the tower, and, after knocking at the great barred door, was secretly admitted to speak with Gabriel. They talked of ways of escape if the authorities would not grant him his freedom, and, leaving him with parting words of courage, Esther returned home to plan the best way of securing his release. But entreaties were fruitless. The authorities were obdurate. Only when Gabriel became so sick that his death seemed certain did they let him go to his home and the care of his wife. Here the first strategy was planned. The young man supposedly grew worse and died, but in reality he regained his strength and was successfully smuggled into Holland, plan- ning to have Esther and the children meet him later in England.
Perhaps he would never have left La Rochelle had he known the terrors in store for his loved ones. The day follow- ing his escape Esther and the children were taken to a convent where they were kept prisoners and daily exhorted by the sisters to renounce Protestantism. Worn out by weeks of this kind of torture, Esther finally feigned conversion. So overjoyed was the Holy Mother with her apparent success in making a convert that she left the door of Esther's cell open. It was the awaited chance, and without delaying a precious moment the brave young woman slipped out of the convent with her children. For- tunately she was able to join other refugees immediately and continue her escape to England, where she located her husband.
But England was only a stopping place, though a hospitable one, and the year 1689
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THE OLD STONE BANK
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THE MAIN BANK BUILDING OF THE PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS, 86 SOUTH MAIN STREET, PROVIDENCE, R. I. ERECTED IN 1896.
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found the little family on the good ship Dolphin crossing the Atlantic to Boston. In the Massachusetts town they found a warm welcome. Plans were discussed for estab- lishing a French Colony near Worcester. Esther was overjoyed at the kindliness of her new neighbors. Gabriel found plenty to do in trying to start the new settlement, and the son, Gabriel, had taken an interest in trading and was busily engaged. All seemed well, but again the first few pleasant years were to give way to troubles and persecu- tion of a new sort. The Huguenots began to find themselves held in the same disap- proval by the Boston Puritans as had Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Finally like these others, they too turned southward toward a colony where they might find a true religious haven.
To Newport came the Bernons in 1698, to the Newport that barred from its wel- come neither Jews nor Quakers and that offered a splendid chance for all with com- mercial ambitions. With them came others of their faith, the Tourtellots, and Dr. Ayrault and his family. Zealously adher- ing to their beliefs, they only waited long enough to build homes and get settled be- fore drawing up a petition to be sent to Lord Bellemont asking that the Church of England send a minister to Newport. Re- sponse to the petition was both prompt and constant and, through the aid of Lord Bellemont, the tiny Church of Trinity was founded.
But though Newport provided a true refuge from religious persecution, Esther LeRoy was not satisfied. Tired out by all the suffering to which she had been exposed, she wanted only to have a quiet home with her husband and children about her. Gabriel was not one to settle to a quiet business life in Newport. His keen mind conceived many enterprises which carried him all over Rhode Island, keeping him from home many a day in succession. And his religious zeal made him only the more anxious to be ever travelling about the countryside, trying to help the scattered settlers and Indians in their understanding of the Bible and doing his best to establish outposts of the Church of England. The young Gabriel, his son, was also of a most active disposition and hardly inclined to remain near at home. His was the life of
a sailor with long absences between his short visits to land. On one of these visits, however, Esther persuaded him to take her across the bay to Narragansett and was as merry as a child at the thought of the excur- sion.
Before they started the father, Gabriel Senior, returned from Providence in time to join them, and the three crossed with their horses over the Jamestown ferries to Narra- gansett and the Willett farm. It was a beautifully clear day for such an outing, and Esther found her spirits returning. At the Willett farm they were given refresh- ments before going on over the fields and rough roadways to the high ridge at Pet- taquamscutt. Here, as they looked in admira- tion at the gorgeous view of the ocean and countryside, the father announced that they were on his own land, a tract which he had bought only recently. Then onward they went, changing horses at the farm of Henry Gardiner, and continuing northward to Wickford where they passed the night. But in the morning the elder Gabriel went on to Providence, while Esther and her son were ferried back to Portsmouth. She was lamenting her husband's frequent absences once more, but the young Gabriel patiently explained the constant labors of his father in behalf of religion.
Poor Esther! She was unable to under- stand the inner fire that drove her husband to act as a missionary to those who, as pioneers, had become separated from any organized religion. And soon she was to have an added sorrow, for in 1701, Dr. Ayrault brought the terrible news of the death of young Gabriel, drowned in a bliz- zard off Newport. As a last consolation after this tragedy her thoughts began to turn once more to the happy days in La Rochelle. She was never to see France again, but she bought land in Wickford and found solace in imagining that its busy little harbor was that of her French home. Nine years after the death of her son she died and was buried in the old part of the Newport Cemetery.
Two years afterwards Gabriel, her hus- band, married Mary Harris, the grand niece of William Harris of Providence. For a while they lived in Wickford, but later came to Providence, living near the spring. Gabriel also remembered La Rochelle and
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built his house out over the sidewalk so that the people could walk under its arches, following the custom of building in the old French town.
By this second wife he had three daugh- ters, Suzanne, Mary and Eve, as well as a son Gabriel who died as an infant. In 1724, he again went to England hoping to get aid for the establishment of a Church
of England in Providence. While there he was received at court. He died in 1735 at the age of 91, and the name Bernon died with him. But his influence in colonial Rhode Island was lasting, and the blood of his proud, zealous heart has passed on through the Tourtelots, Powells, Whipples, and Crawfords to temper much sturdy Rhode Island stock.
RHODE ISLAND FERRIES
T THROUGHOUT the world, ferries have ever played a mighty part in the development of transportation. In early Colonial days they were extensively used along our Eastern seaboard and, even in these modern times, there are still many plying to and fro. True, they have changed in type, power and carry- ing capacity with the passing years, and many, of course, have become obsolete or unnecessary through the building of bridges, small at first, but increasing in size to the huge spans of this modern day.
Yet, despite the most magnificent achieve- ments in bridge architecture, ferries are still doing a steady and profitable business in many localities. If ferries are still an impor- tant means of transportation, how much more so they must have been in Colonial days when the post roads ended on opposite shores and the ferry was the only means of communication between.
Wherever there was a stream or a body of water to be crossed they were a vital necessity, but nowhere were they more needed than in our own little State of Rhode Island, located as it is on both shores of the great inland waterway, Narragansett Bay. The early settlements in Rhode Island were built along its shores, on the islands in its waters, or on the banks of the rivers empty- ing into it.
The first ferry boats were operated under the principles of the old English common law but they were controlled by the towns which granted franchises to private owners and operators. For a long time, before the
business became recognized as profitable, towns had great difficulty in obtaining men to run the ferries, grants of land sometimes being offered as an inducement to take the position. Later on we find rich men, like Benjamin Ellery, of Newport, and Deputy- Governor Abbott, of Providence, making ex- ceptional efforts to secure ferry franchises.
After the ferries became an established feature, many Acts were passed by the Assembly for their management. By 1690, post riders were rated as free passengers and by 1747, an Act provided that ferrymen must be ready to transport passengers from 5 A. M. to 8 P. M., from March 10th to Sep- tember 10th, and from 6 A. M. to 7 P. M. during the balance of the year "if the weather will permit boats passing." How- ever, "Physicians, Surgeons, Midwives, and Persons going to fetch Physicians, Sur- geons, or Midwives were to be carried at any Time of Night."
Also, by 1747, laws required that ferry wharves be well built and kept in good repair, that all boats be good and sound, and that ferrymen give good service. A later provision stated that each boat must have two good oars and a boat hook. Ferries had to be kept afloat at all times and kept at the ferry landings except when laid up for repairs. The penalty for all inexcusable absences from the landings was fixed at ten dollars per hour.
In many instances, ferrymen also kept inns near their wharves and countless sub- terfuges were practiced to obtain the pat- ronage of their passengers over night. And,
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